The Constant Nymph

by Margaret Kennedy

  ‘Imitation,’ Lewis told her sadly.

  ‘Oh, well,’ she consoled him. ‘They look almost real. You might never know.’

  They came into the hall, where drawings by Florence’s friend, Mr Argony, hung on the yellow walls. Lewis was humming a little tune which somebody, his mother most likely, had taught him before he was out of petticoats. It had just come into his head:

  ‘There was a lady loved a swine,

  (Honey! says she.)

  ‘Come upstairs, girls! Our best things are in the parlour.

  ‘ “Pig hog,” she said, “wilt thou be mine?”

  (Hunks! said he.)’

  They went up to the drawing-room, which was a worse shock than ever. Teresa made an effort and said:

  ‘Well, I think it’s nice. You wouldn’t expect Florence to have a lot of heavy sofas and things, would you?’

  ‘But still, she’s married,’ objected Paulina. ‘Married ladies always have sofas. Has Tony got one, Lewis?’

  ‘ “Hunks! said he.” Tony? Oh, she has half a dozen.’

  ‘What did I say? Ike knows. I don’t call that a sofa.’

  She pointed scornfully to a divan in the window, piled high with beautiful cushions.

  ‘But it’s pretty, Lina,’ insisted Teresa.

  ‘A drawing-room,’ said Sebastian, ‘doesn’t want to be pretty. It ought to be rich and grand.’

  The young Sangers had but a small experience of drawing-rooms. But their general notion of respectability implied a good deal of upholstered mahogany, ormolu, and many small tables with mats and albums. They approved, however, of their cousin’s bedroom, to which they were next conducted. It was a fine orderly place, full of her plain, beautiful personal belongings. It was like no lady’s room that they could ever have imagined. No powder was ever spilt on the looking glass, no petticoats hung on the door, no stays were flung over chair backs. The chests and wardrobes smelt faintly of lavender. Paulina looked at the twin beds, side by side, with blue linen covers worked all over in patterns of flowers and leaves in bright wools. She asked in some awe:

  ‘Does she let you sleep in here?’

  Lewis nodded. He still found it a little surprising himself, and woke up of a morning feeling that he must have got there by mistake. A burst of music took him, and he broke into the second stanza of his nursery rhyme:

  ‘ “I’ll build for thee a silver sty.”

  (Honey! says she.)’

  ‘Where do you keep your clothes?’ asked Teresa, peeping into a wardrobe.

  ‘Oh, they aren’t here. They’re in my dressing-room.’

  ‘Oh! Do you have a special room to dress in? Has Ike?’

  ‘I don’t know. I expect so. His house is bigger.’

  ‘I call that unsociable,’ said Paulina. ‘When you’re washing and dressing, that’s just the time you want somebody to talk to. Is she cross when she wakes up in the morning, Lewis?’

  Lewis considered, staring at her bed. He could not remember, somehow, what she was really like. He was never very good at imagining people when they were not there, and just now his mind was confused between two Florences, and the astounding reflection that he was married to both. He had begun to show the house in a spirit of marked rebellion against the domineering stranger who owned it; but the comments and conversation of the children, their very different conception of their cousin, brought him back to an earlier idea of her. He remembered her suddenly as the beautiful, kindly, rather defenceless creature that she had been when last they were all together. There was certainly a pathetic quality about her then, which had affected him very powerfully. But since they came to England it had all melted away like snow in the sunshine.

  All the morning he was musical and inclined to exclaim ‘Hunks!’ at intervals. Also he learned, in the course of the day, many details of the girls’ life at school which amazed and perplexed him. They had, it seemed, gone there with every intention to be good, prepared for inhumanly strict teachers and a great deal of hard work. They were really anxious to be educated and might have done well if the place had not been utterly beyond the scope of their imagination.

  Cleeve College was very large and very modern. It had been built up, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, by a famous pioneer in women’s education, a hard bitten lady who apparently believed that a uniform and most desirable type can be produced by keeping eight hundred girls perpetually upon the run. The young creatures, under her rule, were kept most wonderfully busy, and in their subsequent careers they did her credit. Her traditions hung heavy upon Cleeve, long after her departure. Miss Helen Butterfield, her successor, modified the syllabus and shortened the hours of work, but the girls still ran.

  The staff were not at all strict; for the most part they were lively young women, fresh from the University, with a strong faith in hockey and the prefectorial system. The earnestness which the Sangers brought to their school work won them little favour in that quarter, as long as their manners remained so casual and their laziness upon the playing-field so unconcealed. But, as was natural, their failings brought them into collision with the other girls rather than with authority. They would have suffered in any school; but at Cleeve, which was admittedly democratic, their personal habits and their ready mendacity made them the butt of every amateur reformer. The business of baiting them had a moral sanction behind it. They were persecuted for their own good and the honour of their school until they scarcely knew if they could call their souls their own. They could discover no smallest loophole of respite or escape; in class, at games, at bed and board the tyrannical, many-eyed mob were always with them.

  Paulina, describing it, was impetuous and violent. Teresa was sardonic, and as often inclined to laugh at herself as at the school. She perceived a certain humour in some of the situations that had arisen, and she persisted in saying that she would have stayed there a little longer if Sebastian had not turned up. Lewis did not like this. He wanted her to say that she had run because she could not help it. He was not at all satisfied with her this morning. Undeniably they had succeeded in changing her at that horrible place. In six months she had grown out of all knowledge; she was sturdier and rather clumsy sometimes; there was a new, thoughtful hardening about her eyes and mouth. Perhaps it was her neat, well-made school clothes that made her look so odd. He had never seen her respectably dressed before. And what was this horrid fair braid that slapped her back whenever she moved her head? He had to pull the ribbon off and burn it on the kitchen fire. But even when her hair hung loose on her shoulders it looked sleek and heavy, not like the wind-blown locks he used to twist and play with.

  They were at tea, toasting muffins in the music-room, when Florence returned, cold, tired, anxious and very much put out. She had received their telegram that morning and had hastened back immediately. Her first impression, as the party round the fire rose to greet her, was that she was an intruder. The children flung themselves upon her with every appearance of joy, but, for the fraction of a second, she knew that their faces had fallen. She tried to be stern and displeased, and said coldly as she got away from them:

  ‘Well, children! What is the meaning of this?’

  Lewis was waiting rather shyly until they had done with her, and she, conscious of their inquisitive eyes, went and kissed him on the cheek exclaiming: ‘Well, Lewis!’ in almost exactly the same tone. But, as if bent upon disconcerting her, he responded with a cordial hug which dissipated all her airs of distant dignity. She exclaimed, flustered and at random:

  ‘Oh, I am so tired …’

  They were pulling up a chair to the fire for her; and Teresa was taking off her furs, and Paulina was bringing her a cup of tea, and Sebastian was toasting a muffin for her. Lewis, with quick, deft fingers, was pulling the long pins out of her hat. Then, somehow, he had banished the noisy trio from the room and she was alone with him in the dusk and the quiet firelight. She leant back in her chair, quite exhausted.

  ‘I sent them to the kitchen,’ he said. �
�You’re tired. You don’t want to be worried with them. Have some tea!’

  When she was fed and rested he brought her the two letters from Cleeve, which were full of explanations and proposed plans of actions. He told her that he had wired to both schools. ‘That was sensible of you, dear boy!’

  She gave him an approving look, and he came and sat on the arm of her chair, saying affectionately:

  ‘You needn’t have hurried back like this, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I had to. They must go back on Monday.’

  ‘Go back! Florence! Are you going to make them go back?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘Is it worth while? It’s almost the Christmas holidays.’

  ‘They mustn’t be allowed to think this sort of thing pays.’

  ‘I never thought you’d made them go back,’ he said slowly. ‘In fact, we said in the telegrams that they wouldn’t come back.’

  ‘You said … What on earth made you say that?’

  She sat up indignantly.

  ‘But you won’t make them stay another term, surely?’

  ‘I shall indeed.’

  ‘They’ll only do it again.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. They’ll learn the folly of such escapades. If we give in this time …’

  ‘They were miserable …’

  ‘It was their own fault.’

  ‘It was not. This Cleeve! A filthy place by all accounts. They were right not to stand it.’

  ‘My dear Lewis! It’s the best school in England. I was educated there myself. I know all about it.’

  He had nothing to say to this. So he pleaded:

  ‘At least don’t make Tessa go back. It’s different for Lina.’

  ‘Lina has been loudest in her complaints.’

  ‘I know. But it’s done most harm to Tessa. She was very nearly perfect before she went there …’

  ‘Teresa was very nearly perfect! Lewis, what do you mean?’

  ‘She’s too old for that kind of school.’

  ‘Old! She’s ridiculously young for her age. Are you out of your senses? She isn’t sixteen. And she needs badly to find her own level. What sort of school do you recommend?’

  ‘How should I know? Some place where they won’t change her. A quiet sort of place.’

  ‘Cleeve turns out a splendid type.’

  ‘Oh, Christ …’

  He became too much exasperated even to swear. He flung down the length of the room and back again while Florence repeated in unquenchable amazement:

  ‘But to say that Teresa … Teresa! Is nearly perfect!’

  ‘Was.’

  An obscure relief stole over her. She lay back in her chair again and continued in calmer tones:

  ‘She’s getting to the awkward age. They’ll both do that. Of course, they’ll lose some of their charm; they are bound to become duller for a time. English schoolgirls are not interesting. But on the whole it’s best. They were very insecure, poor darlings … so childish … so impressionable …’

  ‘Yes! Yes! That’s it. Florence, I do entreat you not to send them back!’

  ‘I must. I think it best for them, and so does my father. If we think that, there’s no choice about it.’

  He collected himself for a final appeal.

  ‘Have you written to Millicent yet … about that dinner?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘Couldn’t you … couldn’t we come to some agreement?’

  ‘I’m quite ready for a compromise. You know that.’

  ‘I know. Well, listen! I’ll give in about it; you ask her and I’ll be civil. But won’t you …’

  ‘Won’t I ….?’

  ‘Keep them here a bit … the children …’

  ‘I’d like to, but I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to make their future a bargain for my own convenience. I really think that they ought immediately to go back. It’s not caprice.’

  ‘Very well, I’ve made you a fair offer.’

  She was much tempted to agree, for she did not like the idea of forcing the children back. But her conscience forbade it. On Monday morning, however, she got from both schools a definite refusal to receive the young Sangers again. Their impertinent, unruly ways endangered discipline, and their strange oaths were likely to become the scandal of many respectable homes during the Christmas holidays. Their elopements had been sensational and a bad precedent; the authorities considered that they had better be forgotten as soon as possible. It was clear that they must remain in Chiswick until new establishments could be found willing to take them, and under these circumstances Florence had no scruple in making a bargain. She would keep them till Easter if Lewis would be polite to Millicent sometimes. He agreed and endured the dinner party with surprisingly good grace.

  She did not suggest that he should apologise to his father. Save for the look of the thing she had no particular wish for a reconciliation with Sir Felix. Charles Churchill laughed at him. His influence was, she knew, due in a great measure to his own self-importance and effrontery; she was not prepared to stand patronage from such a man. Millicent was different; she clearly wished to meet, at Chiswick, those elusive people all known to Florence, whom she had so far failed to secure. She would behave herself. To have her there sometimes would look well and create an impression that Lewis was on good terms with his family.

  ‘I’ll ask her to tea when you’re out,’ she told him.

  ‘That’s all right. It’s your house.’

  ‘Now don’t talk nonsense. It’s just as much yours.’

  ‘ “Honey! Says she.” ’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing. A song. An echo of my infancy.’

  16

  Florence was not long in discovering that the Sangers in London were more formidable than the Sangers in the Tyrol. In their house she had never felt so much of a stranger among them as she did now in her own; they seemed to have become, as a family, so much more corporate and definite. Christmas was scarcely over before she began to be aware that she had imported, not three friendless orphans, but an alien community, foreign and inimical to her way of life. She began to be very eager to get rid of them.

  Of the three she liked Sebastian the best because his manners were always so charming. And he was talented; of that there was no doubt. After listening to some of his performances on the music-room piano she fully admitted his right to take his own career very seriously. She talked to him about it and was amazed at the calm certainty of his ideas. Pending some permanent settlement he agreed quite cheerfully to attend a small day school in the neighbourhood, for the benefit of his general education.

  She wished that she could be as certain of her own future. She had, as yet, done nothing to attract the public attention to Lewis. For all the notice that anyone took of him he might never have married an influential wife. This was entirely her own fault for, with half a dozen strings within her reach, she had not made up her mind which to pull. His waywardness unnerved her, and all the complications with the children had taken up time. She must bestir herself and do something.

  Early in February she made up her mind that she must give a party; not a large affair, but very choice. As the first move, it had great strategic importance. She was sure now that she had better not drag her shy young genius to other people’s drawing-rooms. He could not be trusted to behave; he must be allowed to have a solitary and retiring disposition. Those who wished to know him must come out to Chiswick where he could be seen to advantage. He needed his own background. The lovely little house which was to have the charm of Sanger’s circus without its drawbacks, the river, Roberto, the mulberry tree and Lewis’s many waistcoats were all part of the picture. Her business lay in building the thing up, and in after years she often told herself that she could have done it had it not been for the children, the constant dragging, hostile influence of the enemy within her gates which made of every struggle with Lewis a battle with a group.

  To her first party she only meant to invi
te people whom she knew rather well, and these were to be chosen upon two grounds, music and influence. Also they were all to be nice people who could enjoy each other’s company. The whole thing was to be intimate and very pleasant. But she was a little troubled, because she thought that Millicent should be invited and she feared the effect upon Lewis.

  She had found it difficult, in the first place, to make him listen to any of her plans. He had agreed readily enough that she should give a party and even seemed prepared to hand coffee cups if she would like. But he did not grasp its real importance. He showed much more interest and concern in a piano sonata which Sebastian was to play at a concert given by his little school. The fuss which they made over the selection of this piece, and the hours of practice which it seemed to require, were an annoyance to Florence. Once, after a meal at which they had all discussed nothing else, she said impatiently:

  ‘What on earth does it matter if he plays the Mozart or the Haydn? You say the Fantasia isn’t good enough? They may thank their stars for getting anything as good.’

  ‘Indeed, they may,’ agreed Lewis. ‘But it’s a trifle beyond his mark, I think.’

  ‘It’s only the boys and their parents,’ she pointed out. ‘They won’t know …’

  She stopped, biting her lip, aghast at what she had said. Lewis and the three Sangers were looking at her in a way she did not like; they made no comment, but their contemptuous surprise was galling to her. It was impossible always to remember how seriously they took themselves. Her own standards were high, but they were perfect maniacs. It was one of the thousand small occasions upon which she was made to feel that four people in the house were united in a point of view which was, to her, partially incomprehensible. She was still a little vexed about it, when, later in the day, she courageously approached Lewis upon the subject of Millicent’s invitation.